In any steel mill where a steel workpiece is reduced from a bloom, bar or wire, the hot workpiece increases in temperature as the rolling reduction process continues. Steel mill operators have recognized this phenomenon and have sprayed the hot work product with cold water between the roll reduction stands to reduce its temperature and thus enable the rolling process to continue. The problem with this method of cooling is that as the hot steel rod passes through the cooling medium (usually water) some areas of the hot steel rod are cooled more quickly than others, giving rise to a product which exhibits a phenomenon known as “striping” where there appears on the surface of the steel workpiece areas of darkened stripes interspaced with stripes exhibiting hotter temperatures. These stripes appear along the length of the workpiece and cause problems when the workpiece is subjected to subsequent rolling operations and may lead to the production of a scrap steel product. In this instance the work product has become a steel alloy with varying physical characteristics (such as non-uniform hardness) and is difficult to roll in order to obtain uniform product characteristics.